Mario Tennis Aces – Nintendo Switch

Mario Tennis Aces is a new Mario tennis game is bringing a new level of skill and competition to the Nintendo Switch system. Mario steps onto the court in classy tennis garb for intense rallies against a variety of characters in full-blown tennis battles.

New wrinkles in tennis gameplay will challenge your ability to read an opponent’s position and stroke to determine which Shot will give you the advantage. And this time the game adds the first story mode since the Mario tennis game on the game Boy advance system, offering a new flavor of tennis gameplay, with a variety of missions, boss battles and more

Best Mario Tennis hands down in the entire series in terms of gameplay; and way better than the horrible Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash on the WiiU.

There are 15+ Playable Characters making it the largest roster in any Mario Tennis game.

—Gameplay. A lot of strategy compared to previous games as you have to pay attention to your meter, positioning, and decided whether to use your specials. A lot of risk/reward when deciding what moves to do in real time. This game will test your twitch reflexes with very exhilarating with split second decisions when matched up with someone of the same skill level

There are of course basic Shots: Flat, Top Spin, Slice, Lob

But this game uses a meter system or energy gauge which you have to keep track of as you can use Zone Shots, Zone Speed, or Special Shot for offensive and defensive maneuvers. Your meter builds up as you continuously rally with your opponent

-Zone Shot. Aim a target reticle at specific area of map or at opponent themselvesRacket take damage if enemy do direct damage via zone shot. If hit 3x in a match, you get KOed giving your opponent the pointBut if you block/parry with perfect timing; your racket takes no damage

-Zone Speed. when activated puts you in slow motion or bullet time.

-Special Shot. You can save up your meter till it’s full to initiate special shot. This can destroy enemy racket in one hit (instead of 3 like in zone shot), but again, if timed correctly your opponent can block it.

-Trick shot. Makes you leap/dash to one side of the court while also helping you build meter faster than normal shots. Charge shots also build up meter, but not as fast.

-Court Hazards. There are also court hazards such as teleport portal mirrors, random bombs on court, and piranha plants on net to name a few. You can also toggle this off if you want.

-Simple Rules. You can turn off all abilities and play a simple game of tennis with just basic shots, and no racket durability… but it’s not as fun in my opinion.

-Swing Mode. You can use full motion controls like Wii Sports Tennis if you like, but it’s not as efficient/effective as traditional controls. Great for casual play among friends and family, or if you want to work up a sweat/get off the couch.

–Online MultiplayerUnlike Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash you can play with your friends online.

There are events and online tournaments you can participate in. Match making in a tournament is dependent on on your online rank, and internet latency for regular matches. Online tournament are timed events like Splatoons Splatfest or Salmon Run

You also get costumes and characters via participation bonus

–Story Mode/ Single Player

Basically a glorified tutorial.

Gives you fun mini-games, and scenarios/objectives to play through especially with the boss battles.

Plot is very simple like most Mario games: Wario and Waluigi finds an ancient tennis racket which turns the holder of that racket evil. Luigi, being the curious guy he is, touches it and it’s a mad dash to get 5 stones to reverse the curse.

The replay value is low after you’ve completed the single player campaign as this is is very multiplayer (local and online) focused

There’s also tournament mode which is what you expect going through a gauntlet of CPU opponents for unlockables and in-game trophies

Overall, fun arcade tennis game that’ll test your twitch reflexes, and snap decision making. This game is very multiplayer-centric. If you’re in it for the single player, it worth a rental for the creative levels

After playing this game for several hours over the last few days, I can say that this game is very fun and has proven to be worth the initial purchase price. For everyone, the worth of the game will be different in terms of what one hopes to get out of it. I actually played this game in a party-type setting with friends, and that is where this game shines the most. All of us were pretty unimpressed with story mode. One of my friends, who also owns this game, said that the gaming press was inaccurately reflecting the difficulty of some sections (according to him it’s easy as pie), while another friend found the whole story mode/gameplay in general to be frustratingly hard. I find myself falling right in the middle, with a little leniency toward the difficulty not being something insurmountable. We found that when we focused on just playing against one another, that was where most of our time went. We had an absolute blast when playing against other people in the room and against people online.